Chapter 2: Starry, Starry Night

The relentless surge of the engine subsides to a dull roar, and the three passengers pinned to the back of the cylinder can finally move again. The voice chimes in.

"Rendezvous with Socrates in eighteen minutes."

The four know that they left Dorset late at night, and that sunrise was many hours away. Somehow, though, the light from the front portal was growing, and growing rapidly.

Over the next few minutes the press of acceleration gives way to a new, and perhaps even more disconcerting feeling for the four passengers. Their limbs begin to feel almost buoyant, as if floating in water. Before long, they begin to lift from their seating positions, and a queasiness tugs at their stomachs.

It has been a while since Wilhundt has felt the weightlessness of vacuum. It catches him off guard at first, until he realizes that he instinctually knows how to move about in it. He touches a finger to the back of his chair and with that touch and a slow twist of his body he rotates to a standing position, on the ceiling. Looking just slightly 'up' at his friends as they begin to fall off the floor he smiles and a brief memory flashes in his mind.

Welcome to space. Sounds like we have about eighteen minutes before this joyride reaches whatever destination it taking us to.

Wilhundt shifts again, rotating himself back to the perspective of floor normal.

Oh, by the way, my friends call me Hunter.

"Arrival at Socrates in twelve minutes. Deceleration in 10....9....8...."

The passengers see through the viewscreen that the ship is rotating. Stars rush by for a moment, and then what must be the planet below, a large blue ball with swirls of white. Wilhundt grabs onto his seat to manage the change, but the three semi-floating people in the back suddenly move laterally within the craft, banging against one side. The lack of handholds prevents them from re-orienting themselves as the countdown continues.

"....4....3....2....1...."

The hum of the engine returns, not nearly as violently as the launch had been, but still enough to toss the hapless astronauts into the back wall of the cylinder again. The deceleration gradually intensifies, to the relief of the passengers. Pressed against the rear of the ship, they have regained control, and it settles their stomachs for a time. What had been their back rest during launch has now become their floor, and the three have some fun standing on the back wall of the cylinder.

Ten minutes pass, and after a noticeable lessening of the deceleration, the voice intones again:

"Final approach to Socrates under way. Two minutes until dock."

With about thirty seconds remaining, the view changes again. The viewport shows what must be Socrates, forward and below their craft. As their ship continues its rearward movement, they get a sense of the scale of Socrates -- a large, black and white cylinder, pointed at one end, and at least 80 meters long. It rotates slowly around its long axis

"Z-thrusters and rotational compensators engaging. Target: negative ten meters."

The passengers float to the top of the cylinder as the ship moves toward Socrates. Through the viewing portal, the four passengers watch as their craft descends into the belly of the much larger structure. The cylinder shudders for a moment, and they hear a mechanical noise transmitted through their craft. It is completely dark outside the craft. And then it isn't, as the outside is completely lit again.

"Docking complete. Atmospheric and gravitic compensation under way."

Slowly, weight returns, but not completely.

"Compensation complete. Welcome to Socrates."

Dr. Holmes remembers the sensation of floating in space, on a tether, nothing but the stars around him. The gut churning sensation of falling, constantly, forever. He remembers hating every minute of it. But it is familiar, real. More real than the life he has currently been living. Henry looks over at Fritz.
"You know Fritz, one tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence. By the way Fritz, I may throw up on you. Anybody know what this Socrates thing is?"

Don't call me Fritz. Hate the name. Call me Weigel. They used to make fun of me. They'd Say, I's on the fritz.

Fritz, I mean Weigel stares off into nothing as the memory If you're gonna puke; puke in this. Weigel hands the doc his hat. He smells the air. Then smells himself.   Where's our lockers?

Pointing at each of the other gentlemen, "Hunter. Weigel. You can call me whatever you like." Looking over at Mrs. Wynne, "I suppose if I finally start calling you Samar, you'll tell me you go by a different moniker as well? Now, Hunter? Do you want to open the door, or are we going to stay in this soup can?"

Hunter, for the first time since hearing "flight path to Socrates......unobstructed.", is feeling apprehensive. Wherever and whatever 'Socrates' is, he knows they are still in space. He expects that anyone on the other side of their little hatch will not be very friendly to four unannounced visitors in a stolen spacecraft. He also recalls what Mr Davies had shared. For an unknown reason, ships had stopped coming to Dorsett. It's quite possible that they were about to find out why.

" Just lost in a thought, sorry."

Hunter presses the open button and waits expectantly for the hatch to open, pistol readied and out of sight behind the control pedestal.

The hatch opens, and the four passengers get a scent of the air -- fresh, with a hint of metallic. There are no sounds, and as they step forward, each becomes slightly uneasy in the low gravity. Their arms and legs feel like balloons trying to float away.

Their little ship sits in a small hangar, its fully extended docking claws grasped in clamps built into the floor. The roof is curved, the floor is flat. To the group's right is a sealed door labeled 'ENGINEERING : WORKSHOP : HEAD', and to the left, another sealed door marked 'BRIDGE : LAB : STORES'.

The drab gray paint of Socrates matches the lackluster reception. No one greets you, no disembodied voices tell you what is happening or what to expect. The small craft that brought you here seemed to be full of information, but Socrates tells you nothing.

Samar launches herself out of Whitey and manages to bring her momentum to a rest. She adjusts her stylized black leather armor, pats and locates her hidden knives and money, takes a deep breath, and turns to face her companions.

"Gentlemen. This is quite the adventure. I would be in greater awe, but I would like to freshen up, eat, and rest, and all as soon as possible. I know we have accomplished something, but I cannot fathom it all now. So please, after our wits have been jostled about like that, let us quickly ensure we are in no immediate danger, explore our surroundings, and then take turns at rest."

Samar turns and walks to stand in front of the sealed door on the right, looking for how to open it and continue to the head.

Hunter, eased somewhat that there is no immediate indication of unfriendly persons outside thier craft exits as well. He sees no need to attempt stealth. Anyone watching already knows they've arrived. He stows his pistol, no need to advertise possible agression, and steps out next to Samar to look around.

Henry steps out, looks at the two labeled doors, and points at the left one, "Would perhaps this way bring us more answers? We can see if we will be starving anytime in the near future, and the bridge would likely have some other answers we seek."

Henry takes Samar's invitation, and immediately hits the green button. The door slides open slowly, revealing a room no more than 3 meters by 3 meters. There is a single door straight ahead, with a large porthole. As the group enters, they see a red button next to the door, and a display panel. On the panel in glowing letters it reads, //Atmospheric pressure equalized. Not ready to open.//

Wilhundt steps in ahead of the others, takes stock of his surroundings, and peers through the porthole. Curved metal racks line the curved walls, and a handful of chairs are positioned in front of the racks. A series of oddly-shaped boxes sit on the racks. Best he can figure, whoever sat in those chairs may have been looking at the contents of those boxes.

Compared to Dorset, the scene seems sterile. Lifeless. Wilhundt begins telling the group what he's seen, when he spies one other thing. Near one of the racks, the view partially obscured by a chair, lies what appears to be a person. They are covered head to toe in a white, loose-fitting suit.

The figure does not move.

Perhaps, before attempting to open this door, we should see what answers we find through the other door.

Hunter finishes describing the scene, and relates that while he knows they must eventually go through the door and room ahead, there is no reason to enter a room holding a likely dead body before discovering what lies in the other direction.

As he finishes sharing his opinion, Hunter excuses himself and walks across the docking room to the other door, pauses briefly, and pushes the green button.

Hunter finds himself in a small room with two doors, identical to the other. Looking through the portal, he sees a similar scene -- racks, chairs, boxes, and a notable absence of prone bodies.

Three tables sit in the room, but not dining tables. Objects are clamped to the tables, tools (some recognizable, some not), and more of those boxes like you saw in the lab. Curved racks line the walls, some with clear windows on them. All in all, the room is neat and tidy.

Once all four are in the room, Hunter presses the red button by the open door and waits expectantly for the door to close behind them.

Wilhundt is rewarded as the open door slides into place. A moment passes, before the glowing letters and both buttons turn green. //Atmospheric pressure equalized. Ready to open.//

As Weigel is about to step into the room Dr. Holmes elbows him in the ribs, and with a sly grin says, "Remember, disease and danger."

Disease and danger? Doc, don'tcha worry none. I got this.

Weigel trips into what appears to be a workshop. Wonder what they got stowed away. Ya' keep going. I'll look through all this stuff.

Fritz, thrilled at being the first into the room, gets to look over the contents before anyone else. Unfortunately, the objects seem foreign to him, and ascertaining value seems particularly difficult. Wilhundt, on the other hand, sees things that are familiar -- specialized clamps, hole punches, welding tanks and acetylene torches, a bench for fabrication of metal sheets, a lathe, hoppers of raw materials, the list goes on. To someone who is no stranger to fixing and making machinery, the workshop seems like an incredible prize.

There are tools no one in the group recognizes, and of course, boxes (like the ones in the lab) are ever-present. Closer inspection reveals that the boxes have glass panels, higher quality glass than the group is used to seeing, gently curved and perfectly smooth.

Two doors in the back of the workshop are labeled: 'HEAD' and 'ENGINEERING'.

Hunter follows the group into the workshop looking around in wonder. He gently handles a few of the items he doesn't immediately recognize, curious about what sort of tools are needed to maintain and repair a spaceship.

Wilhundt starts to handle some of the objects with care. Where the others pick up the tools with a ham-handed "child holding a fork for the first time" sort of dexterity, he picks them up with a grip that would suggest that he's used them before. He moves slowly, touching one item at a time, like an old man remembering things from his youth, things he hasn't thought about in decades.

The others, however, go through the workshop like ruffians in a general store, picking things up, setting them down, not knowing what they've just handled. Mallets and simple wrenches, they've seen these before, but most of the items in the workshop are quite foreign.

Hunter pauses in front of one of the boxes with the glass fronts. "Guys, I remember these. But in my memory, they had information displayed on them, like the wall panel in the intermediate room we just came through."

He pauses briefly, thinking about everything they had already experienced today. It seems like days, but it was really just an hour or less since he had reconnected the wiring in Whitey and that ship had come to life. And then there are the doors here, that open and close with the push of a button, a button that changes color.

"There might be a button that will activate these boxes."

Samar enters the workshop and immediately looks for a button behind her to close the door. She senses this sort of strict attention to detail is imperative.

"Shall we disturb as little as possible?" Samar suggests. "This may be a crime scene, after all."

Samar glides through the room, weaving around Hunter (drooling over himself) and Weigel (his eyes gleaming with greed), nodding to Doctor Holmes as she makes her way to the head. She needs a moment for her bowels, sure - but more, a moment to herself after the cramped passage to this...place...and all the events of their escape. Who are these people she has run away with? Who are they to her...?

"Who am I to them?"

Hunter investigates closer in the proximity of the display screens, looking for a button to press, or perhaps some wires that need repairing. Front, behind, under the bench surface they sit on...

Wilhundt's search around the panel turns up a couple of letters molded into the material, and painted blue. "BCD", it reads.

Below the glass panel, Wilhundt finds smaller symbols, and begins pressing them. He presses down, presses up, tries to turn them, he tries all kinds of things, before realizing that he just needed to push a little harder. One of the symbols depresses with a *click*, and a light flickers in the glass panel. A quiet hum fills the air, and a dim light begins to grow in the glass panel. The three letters 'BCD' appear again, with the words "Brabus Computational Devices" printed underneath.

This screen fades, and another screen fades in.

Loading:
Antonov Digital Tools and Solar Flair Shipyards present...

NO-VIBE(tm) Harmonic Balancer

for Model AD-1G Plasma Boosters

Select your application:

A series of pictures and names comes up, outlines of apparently different spaceships.

"WHOOP! I got it!
Filled with Elation, Hunter waits for the device to stop doing it's own thing, When it does, he suddenly doesn't know what to do next. He stares briefly at the words and pictures that fill the screen. There is an arrow in the bottom right corner of the screen, pointing right. He pushes it, and is rewarded by the screen changing, only to display more pictures and words, in the same format as the first screen.
Uh... never mind. I have no doubt that this will be useful, but not to us right now. It appears to be a tool for balancing something.

Hunter turns his attention to the other screens, from his experience with the first, he turns each one on, reading the screens as each device reports the device or system it is intended to fix. By the time he finishes, he recognizes from the company image displayed on startup that these are all tools made by BCD and Anatov Digital Tools for fixing ship pieces built by Solar Flair Shipyards. He steps back from the final device, glances to all of them, smiles at the knowledge he is gaining, and then realizes that maybe they were not on for a reason. He wants to explore each device more thoroughly but it is also clear that these are not where they will learn how the person in the lab died. Reluctantly, he pushes the button in front of him that turned on the latest device. Seeing the screen return to the dark state in which he found it, and the humm stop, he returns to each previous device and does the same.

Time to move on to engineering...

I must spend more time with these, but I think it's time we all visit Engineering.

Hunter turns towards the door to engineering and finds...

Dr. Holmes idly looks through the workshop tools. Taking mild curiosity in some of them, that could be used to cut tendons....I bet that would saw through a femur
He catches a glance from Weigel and drops the chisel he just picked up and walks over to look at one of the monitors Wilhundt turned on. He picks one and finds the buttons to turn it on and off as well. He does so just to give himself something to do until he hears Wilhundt proclaim it's time to move on.
"Sounds good Hunter. Lead on."

Samar entered the head and closed the door behind her. It was bigger inside than she expected it to be - more room indoors than she had had all to herself in a long while.

She wasted no time reading and following the instructions for the low-g toilet. It was better to go into battle, should there be one, uninhibited.

It took some figuring, but Samar eventually reasoned out (i.e., trial and error) how to work the waterfall machine. And then she could not resist trying it out. Rinse, lather, rinse. The water felt more like pressurized air than water, but Samar felt cleaner for it. The waterfall machine even had a warm air-drying feature.

Samar wondered if the others would even notice that she had freshened up. But there were some pleasures not to be passed up.

Samar dressed, adroitly braided her hair, and exited the head, closing the door behind her.

Without ceremony, she walked past Weigel, Hunter and Holmes, pushed the green button, and entered engineering.

Samar, having now explored more of the station than anyone else, passes through the door to engineering. There is no double-door system here, just the *swish* of a single door. The room she enters is large, and dominated by two huge cylinders running nearly the length of the room. If the other rooms didn't quite show the cylindrical nature of the station, this room makes it quite obvious. The two huge cylinders are surrounded by curved bars of scaffolding.

The only flat wall is the wall with the door in it, lined with what appear to be more tool chests, and more scaffolding. A hatch appears to go through the floor, as there are rails coming out of the floor. Probably the most surprising thing when she enters the door, though, is that the low gravity has changed to no gravity, and Samar begins to float along the right-hand wall of the large chamber, scaffolding tantalizingly close.

She's float'n again. Wouldn't mind having a crack at it, pardon boys. Let me show ya how it's done.

Weigel, not knowing the "object in motion will stay in motion bit", leaps into the room. His momentum sustains his speed as he hurtles towards the opposite wall from Samar.

How you get it to stop?!?

Weigel slams into the wall. Blood spattle floats away from his lip he bit on impact. He scrambles for a hand hold, misses and begins to tumble in zero gravity.

I got it. Weigel twists and turns and swims in the zero gravity. These actions merely cement him in place. somersaulting in the air. A lump in his throat and a sweaty queasiness tells him he needs to stop. ANYBODY HELP!!

...Hunter turns towards the door to engineering and sees... Weigel launching himself through the open door and maintain a straight trajectory, slamming into the far wall. Shrugging to Dr. Holmes, he walks to the open door and assesses the scene inside of Engineering. He sees that Samar has made her way from the head into Engineering as well and is now floating slowly, parallel to the right hand wall, and also to a railing running down the middle of the room connecting to a scaffolding surrounding what he believes would be a pair of 'Model AD-1G Plasma Boosters'

"Weigel! Straighten out your body, it will slow the tumble. Make sure you absorb the energy of your next impact and deflect yourself towards something you can grab hold of."

Hunter eases himself into the room, left hand holding the left door frame, once completely within the zero G environment, he pulls himself forward and floats forward to the tool chests, clutching the scaffolding to ease himself to a stop where he can examine things more closely.

Finding nothing of immediate use by the toolboxes, Hunter pushes himself across to the railing by the floor hatch Gives it a brief examination, and then pulls himself through it.

Wilhund's exit through the hatch goes as expected, though his sense of up and down suddenly comes into doubt, as he finds himself coming out of a floor (or is it ceiling?) of a large room exactly mirrored with the one he just left. He finds two more of the huge cylinders, apparently the other two plasma thrusters mentioned on the device in the workshop. As disorienting as he finds the spatial relationship, he takes some satisfaction realizing that everything appears to be in its proper place.

More scaffolding is present, as well as more toolboxes, and another door like the one that Weigel had used as a launch pad. This one is closed, however, and has a button that is currently green.

Not seeing anything of intrest, Dr Holmes heads back out the way they came. Cycles himself through the doors and back out into the hangar. He renters the door labeled Bridge/Lab/Stores. Cycles the door shut behind him and looks through the viewport at the dead body on the floor while he waits for the button to turn green and the display to change.

The good doctor's minimal interest in low-gravity gymnastics brings him back to the first door out of the hangar. Perhaps it was his scholarly interest in the dead(?) body lying in the lab, but here he was, pressing the buttons. The door to the lab opens, he passes a few workstations, and there, lying on the floor, was a body.

If there was any kind of toxin in the atmosphere, Holmes doesn't notice it. He does see, however, what appears to be a burn mark in the back of the suit, and a hole in the center of the burn mark, as if someone had extinguished a cigar in the middle of this person's back.

Dr. Holmes rolls the body over. The amount of decay he sees tells him this body has been here for some time, for he can not even tell if it was a man or a woman. Probably nothing more to learn from the body. He stands and walks over to the monitors. Turning each one on like the others from the workshop. He looks about the room a bit as he waits for them to come on.

Hunter, seeing the mirror of this room to the last, pushes off and floats to the door, grabbing a hand hold, he steadies himself and peers through the portal window in the door.

Shifting the body, Holmes gets an occasional whiff of the rot within the suit as air within the suit is pushed through the burn hole. Between the stench and the low gravity, he thinks better of it and switches on the devices, more-or-less identical to the ones in the workshop.

One of these devices is different, however. Connected to this one device is a circular tablet, about a foot in diameter. The tablet and the device both have the initials 'BCD' printed on them, again like the workshop devices. The large, flat circular tablet has a precise circular indentation in its center, and sitting next to this circular tablet sit four disks, each with a picture and a name printed on them.

The layout suggests that whoever sat in this chair utilized the device. A second chair sits next to the device, facing the first chair, with straps on its armrests. A metal and slightly oblong band sits in the chair, attached to the device by a series of braided cables. As the device starts, the large round tablet begins to glow slightly.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Wilhundt peers through the portal, and finds what appears to be a second workshop. More workbenches, more devices. Where the first workshop appeared to be for large-scale repairs and fabrication, this appears to be for finer work.

Seeing nothing alarming, Hunter enters this second workshop.  He notes any doors exiting thte room and looks through any portal windows before browsing the workbenches and toolboxes. He picks up and admires a few tools that are similar to, but much more refined than, those in his own tool roll.  He doesn't pocket any, but puts them back where he found them as he has started to realize that the crew of this station or ship have either fled, or, thinking on the body in the lab, died.  He turns on any display screens that he is able to, just to get at least a partial understanding of what each does.  

Dr. Holmes picks up the four disks, looking for familiar faces, or names at the very least. What he finds gives him a start. He recognizes the four faces on the disks, as well as the names, and he finds himself waiting impatiently for the other three faces to catch up to him in the lab. Perhaps they will catch up when Fritz bores of playing 'Human Cannonball' in engineering...

He eyes the machinery in front of him, excitedly waiting for the device to finish its endlessly long startup procedure.

Dr. Holmes pulls out the disc with his face and name on it. When it appears the machine is ready he puts in his disc in the depression and sits down in the chair without the straps to see what the disc may show him.

To see the screen, Dr. Holmes pulls the chair with the straps towards the front, until the cables attached to the headband pull too much. His poor view from the chair causes some difficulty, but when the disk is inserted into the tablet, a backlight shines through the disk illuminating his picture.

A voice comes from the machine:

"Henry Holmes, please sit in the chair."

Holmes looks himself over with a "what do you think I'm doing?" kind of look.

"Henry Holmes, please sit in the chair."

He looks at his hands, he looks at the straps...

"Henry Holmes, please sit in the chair."

It continues this way, repeating itself every 5 seconds.

how stupid is this going to be
Dr. Holmes slides the chair back slightly, so the cord isn't so tight. Places the head band over his head and slides his arms through the straps and waits for whatever will come next.

Light as a board and stiff as a feather came to mind when Weigel heard Hunter tell him to straighten out. His tumbling slowed to a crawl as he careened into some scaffolding, swung and grabbed a second point of contact he hollers at Samar, 'Nuff of this twirly bird'n. Where's everyone else? The Doc. My belly.

Samar's momentum eventually propelled her within the grasp of some scaffolding. She measures her movement and momentum with little pushes and pulls, never completely letting go of the scaffolding - figuring it out like she did the waterfall mechanism.

All the while, Samar keeps track of her companions. Hunter down the hatch, Weigel bouncing around the room.... The doctor - disappearing in the direction of the only evidence of potential danger in the ship.

Samar feels...protective. And no one wants to lose a doctor. If the doctor were to take his fate in his hands - as they all did in coming here - that was one thing. But Samar did not like the thought of something preying on the doctor, or any of her companions. They all needed each other right now.

Samar gently propels herself towards the door to follow the doctor - to protect him - only to hear Weigel calling for her. She catches herself at the door...

...And decides to go back for Weigel. Imaginary danger and real danger are different. "I do not know the doctor to be in any danger for certain," she tells herself. He could be in the head...but she does not believe that.

Samar climbs and propels herself to Weigel. "Hold on - but not too tight," she tells him, indicating her shoulders. She did not want his hands anywhere near her hips, though that would have been closer to her center of gravity. With Weigel holding on - in a perpendicular piggyback ride - Samar guides them back to the door, and back to gravity. She yells out towards the hatch: "Hunter - I am going to catch up with Dr. Holmes. I bet he went back to the lab!"

Samar traverses the corridors, opening and closing doors, etc., until she arrives at the lab to see Dr. Holmes strap himself to a chair. She watches through the window from the anteroom - ready to act if needed. The doctor has chosen this, so she will not interfere.

Weigel peeks through the same window as Samar, Why's he strapped to a chair? Someone else in there.

Weigel's veins froze. He felt in his pockets for his knife. 'spect we'll have to rescue him.

Hunter hears Samar's muffled yell from engineering. Feeling a bit responsible for her predicament (he could have easily rescued her float before moving on) he turns away from the small room and walks instead back to engineering, pushes in, floating to the central hatch and rolls through, finding the change in orientation more naturally this time. A quick survey of the 'upper' chamber shows him emptiness.

'not here, are they in trouble then, or make a discovery that I missed?'

Continuing the push forward on the lower deck beckons him, but so does a sense of duty to his friends. In short order, he is passing through the hangar where Whitey is docked.

What drew you guys all the way back here? I thought we were going to search the rest of the ship first?

It is at this point that he notices Henry is not in the small room.

Did Henry go to the head then? I didn't think to check for any of you there, just came when you hollered.

Samar motions Hunter into the anteroom, closes the door behind him so all the door button lights go green, and points through the window into the lab where Dr. Holmes has strapped himself to the chair.